


37.1

by malandrina



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:43:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malandrina/pseuds/malandrina
Summary: "I can’t breathe, Liam." Theo's whimsy voice comes muffled to his ears."That's because your face is under the blanket."





	37.1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [37.1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983897) by [LonelyLikeACastaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyLikeACastaway/pseuds/LonelyLikeACastaway)



"Liam."

Theo growls his name for the umpteenth time, distressed voice and grimace of pain included.

"Just a second, two minutes left."

_"Liam."_

Theo clenches his teeth, the despair clear behind his bright eyes.

"I said a moment," Liam insists impatiently. He doesn’t like to repeat himself, it makes him lose the little patience nature gifted him with and the only reason he’s able to  not raise his voice now is because Theo seems in serious agony.

"Liam, _please._ "

It’s still too son, but after another whining lament, Liam leans with a snort over Theo, who’s slumped on the couch, and he slips a hand under the collar of his vest, pulling the thermometer out of under his armpit. Theo immediatly emits a mournful groan and he closes his eyes, turning his head to the side and sinking into the pillow, like Liam just extracted a sword from his flesh, the damn drama queen. As he continues to grumble with his eyes closed, Liam carefully checks the thermometer, automatically pointing his eyes to the higher numbers, _forty-two, forty-one,_ and then getting lower.

Thirty-seven point one.

Liam looks up from the thermometer and stares into the void.

"You have thirty-seven point one, stop it."

"I can’t breathe, Liam." Theo's whimsy voice comes muffled to his ears.

"That's because your face is under the blanket."

Liam snatches abruptly the blanket from his head, leaving it to fall on his chest. Theo suddenly emits a distressing sound, taking his hands to his temples.

"Not the light, it hurts my eyes, it blasts my head, Liam turn it off, please."

"You have thirty-seven point one," Liam repeats, still.

Liam will not turn off the light because Theo is thirty-seven point one, it's not gonna happen.

 _Hell,_ Liam believes his usual temperature is thirty-seven point two.

Theo reopens his eyes, those ridiculous too blue and too big eyes, that looks like they have been modified with an instagram filter, and he doesn’t say a word, but Liam immediately recognizes that expression. It's his lost puppy face, like he’s a pure soul that would never hurt a fly, the one he used for months with all of them while at the same time plotting to psychologically annihilate them and kill their Alpha. Liam knows that expression and he will not turn off the light.

 

 

 

His living room is illuminated only by the rickety flames of different candles scattered around the room and Liam stands in a corner with his arms crossed and pouting lips.

"It looks like a wake, doesn’t it?" Theo murmurs from his seat on the sofa, recently enriched with three more large cushions behind his back. "The wake after my funeral."

He doesn’t whines anymore like a two-year-old rolling around in agony. Now he has moved on to the depression phase, Liam observes, and there’s a look of deep and resigned sadness in his eyes. His voice is the melancholy tone of someone who has now lost all hope.

"You're not going to die, stop it," Liam says bored. It's Saturday night and Liam can’t go out with his friends nor leave the room, because every time he tries to set foot outside the salon for more than two seconds Theo's desperate lament reaches his ears in record time, and he can’t even watch a movie because the blue light of the TV _"is like salt on the wounds that are my eyes_ ". Liam suffers from a serious disorder, diagnosed by the doctor and everything, which makes him the definition of a non-patient person, he can’t deal with those scenes. He would show Theo the wikipedia page on the Explosive Intermittent Disorder to prove it to him, but the blue light of his cell phone would be like salt on the wounds that are his eyes.

"We don’t know this." Theo shakes his head slightly, and then stops and close his eyes with a sigh, as if hit by a sudden twinge. "Deaton said he never saw something like this and that he can’t help me."

Deaton _didn’t_ say that, obviously, he said that werewolves are usually immune to fever and any other human disease and then shrugged -they were on the phone, but Liam _heard_ him shrug- and dismissed him with a "Maybe it's because he’s a Chimera. In any case, as long as the fever is so low there’s nothing to worry about, if it gets worse call me again.".

Deaton said _low_ believing the temperature was thirty-eight and a half, because Liam didn’t have the courage to admit he called him on a Saturday night for a thirty-seven point one.

Normally he would point it out to Theo, but Theo is possessed by a more capricious child than the usual evil child who posseses him for the rest of the time, so Liam is forced to act as a mature person.

"You're not going to die," he repeats calmly. "And in any case, I would at least wait for you to actually take your last breath before organizing your wake."

Liam is not sure why it would be up to him to organize Theo’s wake, when to be honest it’s not like the two of them are even such _good friends._ They’re more acquanintances than anything. Well, acquaintances is not the right word, Theo is not one of those people that Liam would greet with a kind smile and a nod meeting him on the street. He doesn’t even smile to him when he meets him in the kitchen actually and the only nods that he gives to him are the ones he does right on his face when they fight and he breaks his nose whit a headbutt. There isn’t an exact word to define their relationship - although at the umpteenth Theo’s depressed sigh a word emerges in his mind, _pain in the ass_. They met through mutual friends, then they had a bland relationship of mutual politeness for a couple of weeks while Theo was secretly plotting to kill their common friends or alternatively let Liam kill them, then they have been mortal enemies for another couple of weeks while Theo was now _openly_ plotting to kill their common friends, they were nothing during the weeks when Theo had been sent to hell by their common friends and they found themselves to be unwillingly allied for another couple of weeks during the fight with the Ghost Riders and the Anukite.

And now they have been living together for three weeks because Theo doesn’t have a home, since he hammered the hands of the couple he lived with.

Not that this is really Liam’s problem, since he doesn’t go around offering a bed to all the homeless people of Beacon Hills, which would probably be better people than Theo, with no innocent blood on their hands, but no other homeless man has ever threw Liam into an elevator to save his life and so there he is, Theo Raeken, not friend nor acquaintance, slumped on his couch.

Maybe Liam can simply lock him in the basement and reach Mason and Corey for their bowling night.

 

 

 

"Liam."

Liam is starting to hate his name.

"Liam."

Without a specific reason, Liam suddenly remembers, vividly, when he broke a chair and repeatedly slammed it on the floor. He was eleven years old and his mother had forbidden him to eat cake without having finished his vegetables first and now it feels such a stupid reason for breaking a chair.

_"Liam."_

Especially when there are much more valid reasons for doing so.

"What now?" He sighs grumpily and if his therapist could see him now, not breaking any chair, he’d be so proud of him.

"All these candles make me depressed. Will you take me to bed? "

Liam raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"They make me dep-"

"No, not that part. _Take me?_ Don’t you have legs? "

"I have fever," Theo says, staring at him straight in the eyes, as if this ended the discussion.

"Yes, but _legs_ , do you have them or not?"

A thin wrinkle suddenly appears on Theo's forehead as he looks at him from below and _he’s doing it again._ Liam will not fall for it this time, because if Liam ever picks up Theo it will only be to throwing him from the third-floor window.

"Your house has only two floors," Theo says.

Liam hadn’t realized he was expressing his thoughts aloud and he’s suddenly happy his therapist can’t see him now.

 

 

 

Liam is actually carrying Theo in his arms, all right, that's what's happening.

He’s clinging to his shoulders, his arms around his neck strangling him annoyingly, and it wouldn’t be a problem, because of his super werewolf resistance and everything, if it weren’t for the fact that Theo didn’t want to part from his blanket not even for the short ride from the sofa to his bed, so now Liam’s view is obstructed by the green fabric.

"Theo, move it, damn it, I don’t see anything."

"What do you need to see, it's your house, I’m sure you know wh-".

The next moment Liam slams his face against the wall, he lands back on the floor with a loud noise and he wonders for a brief moment, trapped against a kicking Theo still inside the blanket, what else his arm has dragged to the ground during his fall.

 _A candle_ , he answers himself as the blanket catches fire.

 

 

 

 

"Are you going to apologize for setting me on fire?"

Theo is _so_ easily offended.

Liam didn’t _set him on fire_ , by the way. The candle that Theo so passionately wanted to light up in order to avoid being hurt by light bulbs set him on fire and if this is not karma Liam doesn’t know what else it is.

Theo keeps throwing him accusative glances, but Liam is not going to feel guilty for what was an instinctive and quite natural reflex, getting up after the blanket caught fire and run away. It's not his fault if Theo is not as smart and got stuck inside the blanket rolling on the floor. It was quite fun actually, and for this Liam is willing to feel a little guilty.

"I can’t believe you left me there," Theo continues, glaring at him, and Liam realizes he's trying to look threatening, but he has all his air flattened on one side of his head, some ashes on his cheek and he’s enveloped in a new soft blanket and it simply doesn’t work.

"I can’t believe you didn’t get out of the blanket on your own."

_"I have fever."_

"Burning alive is not more acceptable than having fever, Theo. And all your burns healed, so stop complain.”

 

Theo didn’t start healing immediately after Liam emptied a fire extinguisher on him and then freed him from the blanket, and for a moment Liam feared he had accidentally succeeded in what the pack tried to do for months without success, getting rid of Theo Raeken, but a phone call to Deaton solved the situation.

 

_"Deaton, help me, Theo caught fire!"_

_"Is the fever still growing? What’s his temperature now? "_

_"No, he caught fire! Literally! He’s full of burns! "_

_"Oh. Well, you have to trigger the healing process, break his wrist or something. "_

 

Liam took into consideration the idea of smashing a chair on Theo, because that's what a part of him wanted to do all night, but a small _crack_ of the arm was enough.

 

 

 

To catch fire didn’t heal Theo from his fever, funnily enough, but it made him desist from asking Liam for another piggy ride and this is the bright side.

The downside is that it seems to have bewildered him, because when Liam follows Theo upstairs, in the bedroom, he sees him throwing himself on _his_ bed and not on the mattress on the floor across the room.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing in my bed? Sleep in yours. "

" _You_ go on the mattress," Theo grunts, his face sinking into Liam's pillow. "I'm sick."

Liam doesn’t want to sleep on the mattress, because the Chimeras who tried to assassinate Scott sleep on the floor and not loyal friends like him, who totally deserves a real bed, but it's almost two in the morning and Liam is tired.

The mattress, the pillow, the sheets, everything is impregnated with Theo’s scent and Liam is left lying in silence staring at the dark ceiling above him for ahile, not thinking about anything in particular.

Then he jumps up and he shifts his blankets, slapping Theo on the ribs to push him further towards the wall. "That damn mattress is uncomfortable, move."

"I have fever" Theo mumbles letting Liam manhandle him like a dead weight. "I’ll infect you."

"I'm a werewolf, you can’t give me fever," Liam says, lying next to him and pulling the covers up to his neck.

"I'm a werewolf too."

"You’re not a real wolf."

Liam is annoyed and he occasionally says evil things when he is annoyed.

Theo says nothing, but Liam's butt hit painfully the cold floor.

With an impatient sigh, he stands up and slips in bed again, roughly shouldering Theo who has immediately re-occupied the space left empty by him.

"Move."

"Sleep in the mattress, there’s not enough space here."

"It's _my_ bed."

They continue to bicker for a while, wriggling against each other under the covers in an attempt to prevail, until Liam gives up and stands still, eyes on the ceiling. Theo immediately puts an elbow on his chest, as evidence of his victory. Liam wants to bite it, but ash he approaches the other's boy shoulder he’s distracted by the unusual smell .

"What."

Theo glances at him suspiciously, his eyes lingering on Liam's lips pressed against each other to hold back a smile.

"You smell like burnt chicken."

Liam stops hiding his smile and Theo stares at him.

"Werechicken" Liam adds, continuing to smile and this time he perfectly catchs sight of Theo smiling as well before the other boy turns his back to him.

Liam keeps smiling at the ceiling for longer than necessary - he can’t see it, but he knows Theo is doing the same against the wall.

 

 

 

Theo tried to kill all of them, then he went to hell and Liam pulled him out.

They've been living together for three weeks now, and they're not friends or acquaintances.

Liam can’t find a definition for Theo, because one day he’s the one who lies to his face and the next day is the one who throws him into an elevator and runs towards the Ghost Riders. One day he screams angry at him and the next he smiles as he drives, he teases him, he breaks his nose, he gives him advices on how to control anger in that cynical and pedantic way of his. He steals his bed and his clothes and sometimes he moves and talks in his sleep, sometimes he becomes a mask of coldness and some other times he laughs loudly, and every day, every single day Theo is something new and different and unexpected and just every single day Liam can’t wait to discover him.

Not because it's always something positive, most of the time it's not, most of the time Liam and Theo are grumpy and they punch each other or they catch fire and bring themselves towards exasperation, but there are those times, when the room is dark and silent and they lie next to each other and one of them moves just a little, turning on his side, and the other approaches automatically, chest against back, breath against breath, in which they are something different again and those times are worth all the others.

Liam doesn’t believe he will ever find a word that defines Theo, but - _he can’t lie to himself_ – he can’t wait to try every single day.

 

 

 

Liam _can_ lie to himself actually, because there is a word that sometimes comes to his mind,

in moments like this, when he’s not alone in his single bed and it’s inconvenient and his butt hurts for having being pushed to the ground,

and he still doesn’t want to break a chair.

And Liam is so good at tightening his arms more around Theo’s chest and pushing that word

in a corner of his mind. (Because Liam doesn’t have an _anchor_ , and if he did it wouldn’t be Theo Raeken.)

 

 

***

 

Theo has literally been in hell and at the age of nine he let the Dread Doctors cut his chest open with a scalpel.

He has a low empathy, not a low pain tolerance. And despite this being obvious, Liam keeps holding him close, after having indulged him the whole day.

Theo sometimes feels like Liam is just pretending to not knowing it.

 

 


End file.
